Media

At any given moment, as many as 10 million wild jets of solar material burst from the sun's surface. They erupt as fast as 60 miles per second, and can reach lengths of 6,000 miles before collapsing. These are spicules, and despite their grass-like abundance, scientists didn't understand how they form. Now, for the first time, a supercomputer simulation -- so detailed it took a full year to run --...

Researchers have demonstrated how to control the “electron spin” of a nanodiamond while it is levitated with lasers in a vacuum, an advance that could find applications in quantum information processing, sensors and studies into the fundamental physics of quantum mechanics. Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/nanodiamond-purdue Learn more about Tongcang Li's lab: https://sites.google.com/site/...

HITS astrophysicists use new methods to simulate the common-envelope phase of binary stars, discovering dynamic irregularities that may help to explain how supernovae evolve. The results are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The simulation video made by Sebastian Ohlmann visualizes the evolution of the density during a time span of 105 days. density development process in a 105 days...

NASA GSFC solar scientist Holly Gilbert explains a computer model of the sun’s magnetic field. Grasping what drives that magnetic system is crucial for understanding the nature of space throughout the solar system: The sun's invisible magnetic field is responsible for everything from the solar explosions that cause space weather on Earth – such as auroras – to the interplanetary magnetic field and...

This video introduces a new computer simulation exploring the connection between two of the most elusive phenomena in the universe, black holes and dark matter. In the visualization, dark matter particles are gray spheres attached to shaded trails representing their motion. Redder trails indicate particles more strongly affected by the black hole's gravitation and closer to its event horizon (blac...